“Is it possible to be a lukewarm Christian?” he asked his listeners on a recent Sunday morning at The Summit, his North Carolina megachurch.

Standing onstage in gray jeans, a polo shirt and a scruffy stubble, he likens halfhearted Christians to lukewarm coffee. Hot is good, so is cold, he said. But lukewarm coffee makes you want to spit it out.

“There’s no middle ground,” he implores. “You’re either committed to the mission and living all in for Jesus, or you’re not.”

Greear’s sermons draw crowds of nearly 11,000, including an enviable number of college students and young adults, to hear a bracing Christian message he calls a mixture of truth and grace: Sin is real. There’s no salvation outside of faith in Jesus. God’s grace is amazing, but may not last.

It’s the same kind of unvarnished evangelical message he now hopes to parlay into what may be his new role, as president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest Protestant group.

Southern Baptists meeting in Dallas June 12-13 will pick their next president, and the 45-year-old Greear is widely expected to win. (Ken Hemphill, 70, a former seminary president, has also allowed his name to be placed in the running.)

If he does, Greear will become the youngest SBC leader in nearly 40 years to assume the one-year post — which is typically renewed one additional year — and the first Generation X president.

It couldn’t come at a better time.

For nearly a month, Southern Baptists have faced national media scrutiny for a #MeToo moment as one of its most prominent leaders has battled a slew of allegations he demeaned women. Fired from the presidency of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Paige Patterson represents an older guard whose understanding of women’s place in church and society is fast being replaced by a younger generation unwilling to put up with spousal abuse, sexism or chauvinism.

As the denomination wrestles with Patterson’s downfall — and a decrease in membership and baptisms — the Southern Baptist Convention is sorely in need of a makeover. Greear’s fresh, younger face may be exactly what it needs.

“We’re at a very crucial time in the Southern Baptist Convention,” said Daniel Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C. “The older generation is moving off the scene. Do I think J.D. is one of the major leaders of the next generation? Yes. Do I think it’s a good time to pass the baton to that generation? Yes. I certainly do.”

Greear, who studied with Patterson, has already made clear he has no tolerance for sexual misconduct.

“Abuse can never be tolerated, minimized, hidden, or ‘handled internally,’” he said responding to remarks Patterson made that abused women should stay with their husbands. “Those in leadership who turn a blind eye toward abuse are complicit with it and must be held accountable.”

To be sure, Greear doesn’t advocate for women’s ordination. At his church, a woman would never appear onstage by herself to deliver a sermon. Neither does he support revisiting the Baptist statement of faith requiring wives to submit to the leadership of their husbands.

Seating vs. sending

In many ways, J.D. Greear is a conventional Southern Baptist.

Though he grew up 25 miles from Winston-Salem attending a Baptist church, not affiliated with the SBC and spent his first year out of high school at Word of Life Bible Institute, his undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees were all earned at Southern Baptist-affiliated schools.

At Southeastern, Patterson was Greear’s Ph.D. adviser, a man he described as “a beloved figure in my life.”

From Patterson, Greear learned the centrality of mission work, and it has marked his career.

There’s a saying that Greear likes to repeat and pastors on his staff like to parrot: “We judge success not by our seating capacity but by our sending capacity.”

The Summit Church, which he has led for 16 years, sends out more missionaries than any other church in the Southern Baptist Convention.

About 1,000 members are involved in church planting or evangelism missions at home and abroad. Of those, 153 serve overseas through the Southern Baptists’ International Mission Board.

Greear, who himself served as a missionary in Southeast Asia for two years before becoming a church pastor, believes missions are the key to both his faith and the Southern Baptist Convention’s success.

He wants to see more church members go on missions and he wants to engage more young people to use their professional training in the service of their faith.

“It used to be that being called to mission was a special calling that a few people got and then went to seminary,” Greear said. “We’re going to throw that away. All are called to live on mission.”

A knack for reinvention

A group of women talks outside The Summit Church in Durham, N.C. after Sunday services on June 3, 2018. RNS photo by Yonat Shimron

In other ways, Greear represents a younger generation of Southern Baptists who are more urban, more entrepreneurial, more eager to transcend partisan divisions.

His church is a good example. Greear didn’t start The Summit Church. He reinvented it.

After returning from Southeast Asia, he took a job as a college pastor at Homestead Heights Baptist Church, a Durham congregation of a few hundred members. One year later, the church asked the 29-year-old Greear to become its senior pastor.

He accepted on the condition that the congregation be renamed, dropping the word “Baptist.” The tactic has since been adopted by many Baptist churches as a way of sidelining the narrow denominational identity and making it more attractive to a wider public.

It worked.

As The Summit Church grew, he convinced the congregation to sell its Colonial-style building with white steeple and rent space in a high school gym.

J.D. Greear’s sermon is livestreamed to the Carolina Theatre in Durham. RNS photo by Yonat Shimron

A few years later, the church bought a warehouse in an industrial area near the high-tech Research Triangle Park and retrofitted it in the style of many big-box churches with no windows and a nondescript utilitarian feel.

The worship space seats 1,000 so the church rents space at 10 additional locations, including a Chapel Hill site that mostly serves students at the University of North Carolina and at two Raleigh prisons, all of which receive Greear’s sermons by livestream.

The congregation is increasingly pushing into nearby Raleigh, building a $30 million, 1,800-seat sanctuary in the northern suburbs slated to open next year. It plans on keeping all its other locations.

Beyond partisanship

The Summit is known around town for its good works, and Greear boasts that the Durham County Department of Social Services tracked a direct uptick in the number of foster child adoptions to when he began encouraging members to get involved.

At the same time, the church has mostly steered clear of politics. While many older Southern Baptists, like evangelicals generally, are enthusiastic supporters of President Trump, Greear has closely guarded his views.

Pastor J.D. Greear poses at The Summit Church in Durham, N.C. Photo courtesy of J.D. Greear

Unlike Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas, former SBC President Ronnie Floyd, or Johnnie Moore, who was co-chairman of the Trump campaign’s evangelical advisory board — all Southern Baptists — there’s little mention of politics at The Summit.

And that may be part of its secret.

Greear’s typically begins his sermons with “Open your Bibles,” and though a prayer may be lifted earlier in the service for victims of a school shooting or a natural disaster, Greear doesn’t touch politics.

“The younger generation has a hunger for getting beyond the partisan stuff and saying, ‘What’s it like to follow Jesus in 2018 and not be a Republican Christian or a Democrat social progressive Christian?” he said. “Our general approach is that the church as an organization should not typically get involved in the particulars of policy but should limit itself more to teaching the truth.”

No-frills style

A service at The Summit unfurls like so many other contemporary churches.

It opens with a praise band led by three singers. At The Summit Church, one of those is invariably African-American. Racial diversity is important to Greear, and among the campus pastors are several minorities, including an African-American, an Asian-American and a Hispanic.

But the main event is the sermon, and Greear’s tend to run long — about 45 minutes.

Unlike some megachurch pastors who carefully cultivate their persona, Greear seems to spit out his message in a straight-shooting, no-frills style.

“I’ve never seen a hint of J.D. Greear trying to manage his image,” said Clayton King, a pastor at NewSpring Church in Anderson, S.C., and a friend. “He could care less.”

King said Greear is not a visionary but a steady captain. His talents lie in his youthful energy and his passion for Jesus.

“J.D. moves at an iceberg pace,” King said. “An iceberg may move slowly but it carries everything with it. I don’t think about him necessarily being a trailblazer as much as I think about him being a slow, steady, consistent faithful pastor and shepherd.”

So far, women, minorities and younger evangelicals gravitate to that approach.

“What sets him apart is that he remains true to Scripture on a number of theological questions that are considered difficult for Christians,” said Jodi Jackson Tucker, who has been attending the church for two years. “He continues to attract many, many young people.”

For Southern Baptists, enmeshed in criticism about sexism and political polarization, that focus on the faith’s basic teaching may be exactly what they need.

Yonat Shimron

30 Comments

The only problem is that his vision statement is also love God with all your heart,…..which is the summary of the LAW. And you know for 1500 years, no one could. Even now no one can that is why you and I need my Savior. Those individual churches that spin out pastor scandals appear to place their faith target in the self righteousness under the LAW just like the pharisee in new wine skin.

(1) “[J.D. Greear] do[es] believe in eternal security: once saved, always saved … the way that some of the great Baptists of the past–like Charles Spurgeon and John Bunyan–described eternal security. … Persevering in the faith is proof that you have the salvation you could never lose; failing to persevere shows that you never had it to begin with.”

(2) “J.D. Greear, who was a strong contender for president at the recent Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting [June 15, 2016], says it’s unfair to blame declining baptism numbers in the SBC on a resurgence of 5-point Calvinism in Southern Baptist life. Greear graciously stepped aside in a razor close race with Steve Gaines, pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis and a more moderate Calvinist — a contest that many say rested on how 5-point Calvinism affects church growth. … After the first round failed to produce a victor, Greear, a strong Calvinist, threw his support behind Steve Gaines, who is more moderately Reformed.”

(3) “JD Greear is Calvinisticky. His theology is more or less in line with other 3 or 4 point Calvinists (which is the same as a 1 or 2 point Arminian, which is also pretty much the same thing as Richard Land).”

A lot of good here. But he states, in regards to Paige Patterson, “Those in leadership who turn a blind eye toward abuse are complicit with it and must be held accountable.” Paige Patterson is still set to give the sermon at next week’s SBC annual meeting. Greear has yet to say publicly that Patterson should step aside.

We’ll see if he can pull the Southern Baptists back from the brink, but keep in mind they went there voluntarily. They CHOSE to get tangled up in right-wing politics, and we can all see the evil they’ve embraced and excused as a result.

At the end of the day you have the same old theology of superiority and exclusivity (“There’s no salvation outside of faith in Jesus.”) that is driving people away from the church. You have a philosophy that’s alienating women and young people, and you have a church which notoriously is now involved in politics and backs everything Trump. The SBC has lost 1 million members since 2003, a trend unlikely to change under new management. https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/june/southern-baptist-convention-churches-baptisms-sbc-acp.html

To be sure, Greear doesn’t advocate for women’s ordination. At his church, a woman would never appear onstage by herself to deliver a sermon. Neither does he support revisiting the Baptist statement of faith requiring wives to submit to the leadership of their husbands.

So in other words, the “makeover” is merely putting lipstick on a pig. Good luck with that, Baptists, because everyone else will see right through the latest charade toward a “makeover.”

“There’s no middle ground,” he implores. “You’re either committed to the mission and living all in for Jesus, or you’re not.”

Don’t those Baptist preachers put on quite a show and create great Sunday morning entertainment, maily “preaching to the choir!” To the un-churched ones who’ve attended, they stir up tons of guilt with their extreme yes-or-no toggle “hot-cold-definitely NOT lukewarm” messages like the one reported above.

In my experience there are many gradations of “being on-fire for Jesus.” The first step is the decision to follow Christ, whether it’s made in the quietness of one’s own heart or at a “hellfire-and-brimstone” Baptist preaching event. That’s only the FIRST STEP! As one grows in discipleship and comes to count the real cost of that, they begin warming up to a full commitment to God, which happens by degrees of “luke-warm-ness and over a period of time. We all made that first step when we were “saved.” Burning white-hot for Christ wasn’t an automatic thing for us just because we had professed our faith in Christ.

I’m ELCA-Lutheran, and I believe we have it right with out confirmation classes for our young people. They last a couple years at least. When these young people are finished with them, they fully understand the cost of their commitment to Christ. They aren’t quite “burning white-hot for Christ” yet (after all, they ARE still Lutherans, with Northern European roots. Culturally they don’t show their emotions like Christians with different ethnic roots. They don’t need to make a big show of their Christian faith with big emotional outbursts and applause from their peers. They learned in confirmation that it’s more important to demonstrate their faith “down in the trenches” where there’s no one around to applaud, and that’s the place that the love and compassion of Christ is most needed.

The big problem, HpO, is that “getting saved” is a big emotional event, and those fairly often pass once the excitement of the moment passes and one realizes the cost in ridicule and changes in their life that would be required. Also, “getting saved” is just the first step toward growing into “the full stature of Christ,” which is the goal here, and not getting into Heaven or avoiding Hell. See my contribution above where I explain the value of studying the demands of our faith for quite a long period of time before making a final commitment to ii.

I stay away from over-used christianese semantics, because The Often-Missed-and-Dismissed Bottomline is only this gospel, as far as God & Jesus are concerned:

To remember always THE Christ Jesus of the gospels, epistles and revelation, and receive daily the good news of salvation from His crucifixion, burial and resurrection. His faith, righteousness and purpose. His bread, water and labor. His intervention, peace, zeal and fearlessness. His patient endurance, to which we bear witness and for which we are forever grateful: That for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross, so that for the same joy of glorious resurrection that is set before us, we can now endure the cross in response to the ransoming Fatherly love of God through the crucifixion, burial and resurrection of Jesus, the Messiah of Israel and the savior of the world.

In my observation (and I’m a part of this trend myself, so I can’t say I’m totally unbiased, though my church is ARBCA, not SBC), young Christians are increasingly attracted away from modern American fundamentalism, not to progressivism, but toward more historically-grounded doctrine and practice, rediscovering their confessional roots, such as those outlined in the 1689 London Baptist Confession of Faith (which is my church’s statement of faith), the Westminster Confession, and others. I don’t think Dr. Greear is all the way there, but he’s probably closer than most Southern Baptists. This might not be happy news for those on the liberal side, but it’s definitely a shift away from the modern fundamentalism which has become more social and political than spiritual.

It’s symbolic, for sure, but since he does address these passages to seven cities which actually existed and no doubt had churches in them in the first century, I think that they are also literal. Sort of like how the Passover, Tabernacle/Temple, sacrifices, etc. were both literal and symbolic at the same time. My understanding of Revelation is kind of a mix of historicist and idealist, basically what Martyn Lloyd-Jones called the “spiritual historicist view.”

As for how a whole church could be collectively judged that way, I don’t think it’s that outlandish. If your idea of the local church is the gigantic modern church where the pastor doesn’t know your name and you don’t know the names of many others, then sure, but the underground churches of first century Asia Minor were probably pretty tight-knit. I go to a small church (>100 members) where we all know each other pretty intimately, so I don’t think it would be hard to identify common characteristics of the members.

“Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that love another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love work no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.”

Yeah no one can love God with all your heart…In the same chapter of 10 commandments. There is this altar with undressed stones. There shall not be any step to show the nakedness of man. This is the antidote of the law, Jesus Christ. We love for He loves us first.

Wrong. The ten commandments was given after the ancient Israel boasted to Moses what ever the LORD said we will do (נַעֲשֶׂ֑ה). This is the same word “made” used to describe in Genesis 1:7 “God made the firmament…..”

Thanks. BTW, Robert Estienne isn’t my name. He’s a guy from history. But anyway…

I am not suggesting that we look to the Law as our righteousness, just as a description of godly love. Now I would dispute against that the 10 Commandments were first given in Exodus 20. They were first given in writing then, but we see people, even pagans, affirming these commandments much earlier.

For example, Cain knew that murder was wrong. Pharaoh and Abimelech knew that adultery was wrong. I could give other examples. Then Romans 1 lists a whole bunch of sins, all of which are violations of the Decalogue, and says that people know “that they which commit such things are worthy of death.” And later that “For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness…” so the Decalogue is identified with the law written on the human heart by way of the conscience.

Thank you the brother aka RE, neither is Herrnhut. The conscience is a matter of state of mind or “innate” capacity of moral free agent discernment.

This stem from Genesis 2 ” And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou may freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eat thereof thou shalt surely die.” The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the one commandment in the state of innocence from which man fall from grace. Sure a heathen knows of good and evil and even talk about what is right and wrong. All religions in the world are based on this do good get good do bad get bad. People kills people of other faiths and cut off the heads because of their evil conscience like Cain. Pharaoh and Abimelech knows it is wrong to take other’s wife but have taken any way in their position of power to have any, all or many women to his own self without a tinge of self doubt. Only because of God’s pending threat, they return Sarah. So conscience is a state, evil, weak, or self…until washed by the blood and water.

Sadly the churches are focusing on faith of man but not grace of Christ. Hence healing and blessing lacks.

If Greear has any influence or power with Southwestern Theological Seminary, it would be nice if he could get them to take the narrow road and offer a full and public apology to Paige Patterson. What the Executive Board of Trustees has done is unbiblical and unethical. This blogger speaks the truth in love on this issue. I encourage you to read her words. I’m just thankful someone was bold enough to speak the truth about all this. https://sbcissues.wordpress.com/…/the-untold-truth…/

What the board has done is unbiblical and unethical. This blogger speaks the truth in love on this issue. I encourage you to read her words. I’m just thankful someone was bold enough to speak the truth about all this. https://sbcissues.wordpress.com/…/the-untold-truth…/

The SBC needs Piper to get their theology right. 🙂 I do hope Greear can get the Southwestern situation under control though. What the board has done there is unbiblical and unethical. Say what you want about SBC women, it took a woman to finally speak the truth in love and guess what? It wasn’t Queen Moore. I’m just thankful someone was bold enough to speak the truth about all this. https://sbcissues.wordpress.com/…/the-untold-truth…/

The SBC has a love problem when it comes to their own. Look at Southwestern Seminary right now. I would be ashamed to be a student, professor, or graduate from there. Say what you want about SBC women but it took one to finally speak the truth in love. What the board has done at SWBTS is unbiblical and unethical. This blogger speaks the truth in love on this issue. I encourage you to read her words. I’m just thankful someone was bold enough to speak the truth about all this. https://sbcissues.wordpress.com/…/the-untold-truth…/

Seriously? You’re “thankful [Sharayah Colter] was bold enough to speak the truth about all this”? About what – that although “Southern Baptists deserv[ing] to know the whole story … thus far [have] heard one side of it … Patterson holds the conviction not to defend himself personally, following the example of Christ”? And what “example of Christ” is that, exactly? She didn’t bother to back that up with scriptures. Do you know your bible well enough to know what “example of Christ” she’s talking about there? Well, then, give me all the references, by chapter and verse, please. Otherwise, all I can say to you is, Nice try.

Btw, maybe she thought Southern Baptist were smart enough spiritually to know she was talking about Christ’s trial before His crucifixion. It seems that you are for people speaking the truth in love like Mrs. Colter has done in her blog. Were you bothered by the truth? Also, I think Southern Baptist are just now beginning to hear another side of this story. I personally feel if JD Geerar wants to give the SBC a makeover, he will use his influence to lead Southwestern Seminary, and maybe even Southeastern to repentance and an apology to Dr. Patterson for acting on hearsay and imaturely in this matter.

Dude, try reading the gospels. Specifically, the trial of Jesus before he was crucified. Mrs. Colter wasn’t thinking her readers would be people that had their mom do their homework their whole life. She wrote a blog for intelligent Christians who hopefully know a little something about the Bible. Shalom!

Chapter and verse on “the trial of Jesus before he was crucified”? If in Matthew, that’d be Matthew 26:57-68 and 27:11-26, setting the model for “Patterson … not to defend himself personally, following the example of Christ”? OK-dokey, let’s see:

“[Patterson] kept silent. And the high priest said to Him, ‘I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether You are [Patterson] the Christ, the Son of God.’ [Patterson] said to him, ‘You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you will see [Patterson] the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.’ … [Later on] Pilate said to [Patterson], ‘Do You not hear how many things they testify against You?’ And [Patterson] did not answer him with regard to even a single charge, so the governor was quite amazed.”

Good job! The point Mrs. Colter is making is that Patterson did not try to defend himself. Actually, The Executive Board of Trustees, made up of only 8 people, did not allow him to defend himself. They did their dirty work while he was out of the country and when the other board members were not present. However, Mrs. Colter seems to be saying in her blog that her writing was not influenced by Patterson himself but that she chose to write and shed truth on the situation by her own freewill. The bottom line is that the executive board chose to crucify a good man while letting the alleged rapist (we’ll call him Barabbas) go free. Sounds familiar?

Your problem is that you are thinking of this like an insert our name John 3:16 exercise rather than her intent that Dr. Patterson was practicing Chrislikeness in keeping silent or trying to defend himself. It’s finny that you did not pick up in your exercise that the board of trustees are like the Pharisees. Just an observation.

Concerning the “letter [Megan] Lively sent to [Paige] Patterson dated April 15, 2003 … Sharaya Colter … has been criticized for publishing the student letter online and possibly violating student privacy laws. Colter, a former journalist, responded: ‘I did not steal anything. I was given photocopies of personal property which legal counsel deemed ready for publication in my article. I have never seen or touched anyone’s student files, and I positvely did not alter any records.’ Lively told The Washington Post that the documents Colter published were altered. [The chairman … Kevin] Ueckert of the SWBTS board called the publishing of the documents ‘inappropriate and unethical’ and said they ‘do not alter the decision of the Executive Committee’ to terminate Patterson. Colter also challenged last week the allegation of Patterson mishandling the 2015 rape case, arguing, ‘Patterson had done all he could by calling the police, expelling the student (the assailant) and encouraging the woman multiple times to press charges.’ In a Star-Telegram report on Saturday, Stuart Cochran, a Dallas attorney for the former female student, said his client alleges that Patterson told her that it was a ‘good thing’ she had been raped and that her future husband wouldn’t care if she was a virgin or not. ‘He threatened to sic lawyers on her [mother] for questioning his leadership at the school when she asked why the assailant was allowed on campus,’ Cochran added.”

“To … the Colters, I forgive you …’, [blogger Megan] Lively wrote … [for] Sharayah Colter [to have] published a letter and personal note from Lively to Patterson in 2003 … [which] Lively, however, claimed on Thursday … was ‘edited'”.

Mrs. Lively can’t show or tell anyone how they were edited because they were not. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary just shot themselves in the foot because they can’t produce evidence either. They are the ones with all these “files”. #SWBTS will die a slow and painful death because of all of this. Southern Seminary is already kickin’ their butts in enrollment because of the Reform Resurgence and now they go and do this boneheaded move. I realize that the trustees that are about to rotate off want to name the new president, but it’s is unethical and unbiblical how they have gone about it. They are doing what they have accused Patterson of with the conservative takeover back in the day.